1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to management of industrial vehicles. More particularly, the invention relates to management of such vehicles in environments such as facilities, including for example, plants, construction sites, warehouses, docks, airports, campus, and other specified mapped areas.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many cargo-handling environments such as warehousing environments, for example, cargo is transported throughout a warehouse by powered industrial vehicles (PIVs). In larger warehouses, it is not uncommon for a hundreds of PIVs to be operating within the warehouse at the same time. In these large warehouses, it is difficult to track the location of each PIV and to distribute the work load evenly among all PIVs, because it is difficult to ascertain the availability of a PIV at any given moment. Sometimes, a PIV may be constantly on the run throughout the day, carrying cargo from one location to the next. At the same time, other PIVs may be sitting idle with very little work to do.
Many factors can affect the utilization of a particular PIV. For example, if PIVs are assigned regular delivery routes, it may be that some routes are significantly busier than others. Moreover, some PIV operators may be more experienced and skilled than others, which results in dispatchers seeking to use these drivers as much as possible. Other factors affecting the utilization of PIVs may include the familiarity of the operator with the layout of the workspace in which he is operating. For example, in a large warehouse environment, drivers with superior knowledge of the warehouse environment may be able to reach delivery destinations more efficiently than those without that knowledge. The motivation of the operator of the PIV may also play a role in a PIV's rate of utilization. Some operators may be more motivated and may actively seek out additional work. Other operators may be less motivated, and fail to quickly return to a dispatch area to receive an additional assignment. Uneven usage of PIVs can lead to problems in scheduling maintenance (which often depends on utilization rate). Therefore, it would be a valuable improvement to provide a system in which utilization of PIVs can be evenly distributed among an entire fleet of PIVs ensuring balanced PIV workload capacity that meets dynamic workload demand profiles.
Existing schemes for managing PIV fleets also suffer from an inability to easily provide an operator of the PIV with information that may help the operator more effectively do his job. FIG. 1 provides a flowchart of a process that illustrates some of these difficulties. At block 1, cargo arrives at a facility for unloading by a PIV. At block 2, the PIV arrives at a loading dock in the facility. However, in order to accept a load from the inbound truck the PIV must be unassigned and not carrying cargo. Thus at decision block 3, the process determines whether the PIV is already assigned. If the PIV is not already assigned, the process proceeds to block 4, where the PIV picks up the cargo and destination assignment. The process then proceeds to block 5. If it was determined in block 3 that the PIV is already carrying cargo when it arrives at the loading dock, the process skips down to block 5.
At block 5, the PIV operator must determine whether he knows the location of the delivery destination for the cargo. Some warehouse environments may span 75 acres or more, so if the PIV operator does not know the location for delivery, he must first obtain this information in block 6 before the process then proceeds to block 7. If, in block 5, the PIV operator is familiar with the destination of the cargo, the process skips to block 7. At block 7, the PIV operator proceeds to the delivery destination. Unfortunately, in larger warehouses, the operator may not know the most direct route to his destination, so often times the chosen route is not an optimal route for traversing the facility. Next, at block 8, the PIV arrives at its destination and delivers its cargo. From that point, the PIV operator must return to the loading dock to receive another assignment.
The process shown in FIG. 1 is inefficient because the operator of the PIV does not have easy access to relevant data that may help him more efficiently operate the PIV. For example, upon delivering the cargo in block 8 of FIG. 1, there may be additional cargo at a nearby location that needs to be returned to the loading dock. However, in the system of in FIG. 1, the PIV must return to the loading dock to receive a dispatch assignment, and only then will it proceed to that new location to pickup the cargo.
Another problem associated with the operation of PIVs in existing warehousing environments stems from the difficulty associated with predicting PIV workloads in advance. Sometimes, unexpected shipments may arrive at the warehouse facility, leading to an unusually heavy volume of cargo that must be transported throughout the facility. These unanticipated spikes in arriving cargo tend to result in uneven utilization and inefficient scheduling of PIVs and their operators, as operators may need to be called in and work overtime to handle the unexpected spike in cargo volume.
Significant costs may also be incurred as a result of unauthorized or unlicensed operators taking control of PIVs and operating them unsafely. Moreover because PIVs may be dispatched for long periods of time, if a PIV is involved in an accident, it is very difficult to track when and where the accident occurred, or even who was responsible. Therefore it would be a valuable improvement to provide a system in which operators could be associated with PIVs and data could be collected regarding the operator's control of the PIV.